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Chapter 654 Price of greed (4)

"Other than the few skirmishes they have against some of the spirit beasts that stumble into their territories, there has been nothing, but I did hear something which Su Jinjing is working on confirming as we speak.

There\'s a rumor floating around that the Deer Mountain Kingdom will open its doors to any organization around the range that manages to have a palace realm expert at the helm.

The one that does will be given one of the frontier territories within the kingdom and will receive support to settle down and if they want to, an aristocratic title to go with it..."

On hearing Luo Meili\'s reply, Yang Qing couldn\'t help but have a small frown.

"Is it confirmed who made the offer?" asked Yang Qing.

The Deer Mountain Kingdom despite not having full control over the range, the territory within their Kingdom was still a substantial amount, so they had a lot of territory to spare. However, in all this while, they never made an offer like the one Luo Meili said.

They did invite talents to settle in their kingdom over the years to boost their numbers and strength but they never invited a whole organization within their lands and for good reason too, one of which was the delicate state of affairs between the royal family and the aristocratic clans.

Neither side could risk adding unknowns to the equation and the only way that stance would change was if they were facing a situation that made them desperate enough that they needed the manpower.

Yang Qing\'s eyes couldn\'t help but constrict as the image of the obsidian serpent and the fire adler bear appeared in his mind.

Those two were potent enough to make the kingdom desperate to open its doors to outside organizations and why they set a palace realm entry threshold.

But if it was true, that fact opened up a lot of webs, one of which was someone in the kingdom clearly knew about the existence of the obsidian serpents months in advance, and was making preparations, or which Yang Qing wasn\'t sure if was just him being paranoid, but when he found out about the state of the king\'s grandfather, he wondered to himself, if the other major families found out about it, how would they react to said news.

Of the couple of scenarios he thought up, one of the measures was to gather as much help and strength as you can and strike the royal family.

What if the offer, was geared toward that direction? Some part of him hoped it was true because he would now have a thread to follow that may or may not lead him to the person who colluded with the Blue Soul Flame Crow Syndicate.

However, everything was just conjecture at this point and the rumor of the offer circulating had not been verified yet.

But if it was true, then such an offer would be tempting enough to make the four organizations willingly support one of them to reach the palace realm even if it would potentially leave them subordinated to that figure.

Living in Deer Mountain Kingdom, even a frontier territory at that was bound to be a thousand times better than their current state. Whether it be in terms of resources or the sense of safety, belonging, and peace of mind that came with knowing they were within the Deer Mountain Kingdom.

Pushing the thoughts aside, Yang Qing focused back on the rest of Xin Zephyr\'s testimony.

"On receiving notice of the attack, my clan dispatched me as I was the only senior most figure of the clan that was available on such short notice. Considering who we were dealing with I couldn\'t risk inviting more people, especially ones who had not reached the late stages of the core formation realm.

Both the tricolored white-eyed tortoise and the red pine flame porcupine were in the sixth stage of the core formation realm. We couldn\'t risk having anyone weaker than the seventh stage.

I met up with fellow daoist Ling Qi of the Moon Essence Cauldron Sect, fellow daoist Wu Shen of the Flowing Fist Sect, and fellow daoist Hua Ying from the Hua Clan, together we encircled the tricolored white-eyed tortoise while the rest of the Hua Clan handled the red pine flamed porcupine.." Elder Xin Zephyr said as he pointed to the other cultivators next to her.

Ling Qi was a handsome man with short wavy brown hair and eyes and looked to be in his late thirties. He didn\'t look like a person who cared much about his appearance as his robe still wreaked of herbs and one could see smudges and singe marks on it. Just like Xin Zephyr, he was at the eighth stage of the core formation realm.

Wu Shen was a middle-aged man with flowing dark blue hair and even though his sect, the Flowing Fist Sect was famous for having powerful bodies to match their fist techniques, he looked more like a weak scholar. He had smooth jade skin and his body was just toned enough not to be called thin. 

However, from the four cultivators that stood before him, Yang Qing could tell that Wu Shen was the most powerful of the group. What made him stand out to Yang Qing despite having an eighth-stage core formation cultivation base like the rest, was Yang Qing could sense an embryonic form of fist intent forming within him. It was an ephemeral supple force swirling around his entire body.

Lastly, Hua Ying was a female cultivator who looked to be in her late thirties, with a simple look and long curly hazelnut hair. Her eyes swirled with a nebulous power, it was like staring at the eye of a tornado. There was a gravitational power within them.

Yang Qing could tell the effect had something to do with her bloodline and the cultivation art she cultivated which had dark attributes to them. She had the highest cultivation base, which was at the ninth stage of the core formation realm.

"After meeting up we went after the tricolored white-eyed tortoise and managed to corner it. Even if we were stronger than it, the battle was anything but easy, and it would have made a short work of us if it had not been for the detoxifying measures of fellow daoist Ling Qi.." said Elder Xin Zephyr.

"I hardly contributed much, it was all of you who had to face it straight on while I lurked at the back.." answered the handsome young man with a slovenly appearance.

Xin Zephyr being mindful of where she was continued with her testimony.

"After fighting for five hours, we were close to defeating the tricolored white-eyed tortoise only to find out it had been holding back its cultivation base. It jumped from the sixth stage to the peak of the seventh stage and counter-attacked.

We were caught off guard and suffered heavy injuries from it. We were only lucky that the tortoise decided to be cautious and decided to leave rather than fight us to the death. It used the opportunity it had created with the surprise counter-attack to flee.

We were in no position to chase after it, let alone even protect ourselves. Luckily someone from the Hua Clan came and took us to their clan\'s grounds.

But unfortunately for us, the injuries we suffered were beyond the means of the healers of the Hua Clan. So, like we always have when we face injuries beyond our means to handle, we went to Daoist Ling Qi\'s sect for assistance since they are much more skilled in alchemy than the rest of us.

However, even they could not detoxify us as the tricolored white-eyed tortoise went to the extent of sacrificing a bit of its pure blood essence to poison us, making its attack more potent.

Our bodies were slowly being corroded from the inside. The poison invaded our blood, and our internal organs and was slowly making its way into our qi channels and meridians.

The poison seemed to have a life of its own, and any method we used to detoxify it was met with explosive retaliation.

For a month we suffered extreme torment. Our bodies suffered extreme chill while our organs felt like it was liquefying. Any qi we attempted to absorb left us feeling like like our qi channels and meridians had been sliced by a million knives.

Old wounds started reopening, while the new ones didn\'t close, which leaked black chilly liquid. 

Next, we started losing our senses, the first to go was touch, then smell, then hearing, i don\'t know when taste went, because at the time i was in so much pain, i could barely think straight, but i do know i really panicked when my vision started fading.." Xin Zephyr said with a fearful expression, her hands stretched out with slight tremors appearing on them.

"When our sight started going, I could feel my soul slowly get drained like it was being smothered by an overwhelming darkness.

When the symptoms reached that point, where our deaths were close, our organizations used every and any means they could to try and get us healed, and eventually they managed to find someone, a wondering alchemist by the name of Long Zemin.."